Note left in Wilmette murders-suicide released

March 12, 2009

The rambling 43-page suicide note left by a man who killed his wife and teenage stepson last month in their Wilmette home is peppered with self-pity over his broken ankle, treatment for bipolar disorder and what he described as a crumbling marriage.

"I could not fight off the suicide dreams," wrote Richard Wiley, 54, who police say murdered his wife Kathryn Wiley-Motes, 50, and her son Christopher Motes, 17, on the afternoon of Feb. 28, and killed himself the following evening. (To see a page of the letter click HERE.)

The handwritten note -- which Wilmette police released Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Tribune -- predicted there would be "total chaos" at the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, where his wife worked, when the deaths were discovered. The note included critical comments about various family members and other individuals.

Police declined to discuss the note.

Wiley had served 15 years behind bars for stabbing a previous wife to death in 1985.

In one section of the suicide note, printed on lined paper, Wiley was defiant, writing: "I'm not going back to prison. So I know the final chapter is now written. What started as my problem turned into a larger situation. People will say many things and nothing I say will matter."

Wiley wrote that no one but the 17-year-old stepson he had just murdered with a replica Civil War rifle ever asked about those years behind bars.

He expressed sadness that few people visited him in the family's Greenleaf Avenue home since an accident 20 months ago in Wisconsin that left him with a broken ankle.

"While I was incarcerated for 15 years I thought I knew loneliness," Wiley wrote. "But during the last 20 months it became profound."

Wiley also described how he killed the family's turtle, three cats, four small birds, and a parrot and wrote, "Our little loved ones could not be trusted to anyone else."

He told police where they could find the animals' bodies, along with those of his wife and stepson.

In some ways, Wiley seemed more upset about killing the pets than his wife and stepson.

"She looked at me when I caught her with a knowing look," he wrote of a cat. "When I stabbed her she looked again. This one hurt me deeply."

"Obviously, he was mentally ill," said Wiley-Motes' brother, David Motes, who had not yet read the note late Thursday afternoon but had discussed it with police. "He was a deeply troubled person that my sister tried to help. You can tell how narcissistic this gentleman was. Everything revolved around him."

Motes, 47, who lives near Minneapolis, was in Wilmette this week for memorial services. On Thursday he picked up a copy of Wiley's note from police but planned to read it later.

Wiley had attempted suicide "a couple times" in the past, according to Motes. The ups and downs of his mood disorder made the marriage difficult, and his sister planned to divorce Wiley, according to Motes.